John was discouraged today. He’s been doing his vinyl cedar shake siding project for several weeks. What he’s accomplished looks great. He started in September 2009. The one elevation on the west end of our house was nearly complete. He ended up in the hospital, wasn’t well enough to continue and didn’t get back to it until a few weeks ago.

He’s been working on the front of the garage which looks great. Today he was working on the side of the garage that folks “walk past” to get to our front door. He was making decent strides when he realized that the front of the garage and this side, must tie in together. When he did the front, he’d found the front wasn’t straight. The distance between the ground and the eves slanted so there was more height on the left side. John adjusted, making sure the left side was gradually higher.

What he forgot was that he should have also adjusted the side he’s currently working on so it would “match” the front. Instead he kept the siding level and by the time he got to the eves, the siding didn’t match up with the front. The “corner pieces” wouldn’t work. They needed to snap into place. The claps which hook on the siding wouldn’t work. He’s going to have to rip off much of the side and adjust it as he did on the front.

It was many hours of work that he’ll have to re-do.

About 4:00 p.m. we decided that it was wise to put it aside. We’d to go to town.

Willow needed a re-fill on a prescription. Friday we’d tried to pick up a three-month prescription re-fill (90 pills) but Walmart’s pharmacy didn’t have enough to complete the 90-day supply. They sold us three pills to tide us over, and asked us to come back. We returned today to get the other 87 pills of his three-month supply. The total three month prescription should have cost $10. We had paid $.54 for the three ($.18 a piece) on Friday. We knew that was an over-charge, but we expected that we’d pay $9.46 for the remainder of the three-month supply. Instead we were charged $.18 times 87 pills or $15.66. John complained.

The clerk recognized that there’d been a mistake. No problem. Our charge would be adjusted to the correct price: $10 total. The $6.20 over-charge ended up costing us about an hour of our time. Goof after goof. After about 45 minutes they produced a new charge slip for $10. The clerk realized it still wasn’t right, so she tried again. About a half hour later, I said, “Just charge us the $10 for three-months (forget that we already paid $.54), and we’ll be happy.” It still took another 15 minutes (at least.) In the end, we paid $10 today (plus the $.54 Friday) for the three month prescription. We were over-charged by $.54 but I was glad to get out of the store. It had taken well over an hour!!

We left Walmart and went to the local Moose lodge to enjoy an advertised “all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner.” For some unknown reason, the dinner was cancelled. No spaghetti. We ended up enjoying a happy-hour beer and grilled burger and fries. Spaghetti will happen tomorrow.

Maybe we should just forget today.